A crowd of around 1,000 demonstrators, mainly university students, marched through the streets of the capital Kabul before massing in front of the national parliament building.

The demonstrators, almost all men, chanted: “Death to America, death to Jews and Christians!” as they burned a model of Obama and a United States flag, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

The protest follows widely circulated claims that international troops — part of a 100,000-strong Western military deployment in Afghanistan — burned a copy of the holy book during an operation against Taliban rebels in the province of Wardak, south of Kabul, earlier this month.